The present invention relates to a light emitting apparatus. The apparatus comprises a high intensity light source configured to emit light of a first wavelength; a beam shaping optical element configured to redistribute the light of the first wavelength emitted by the high intensity light source into an outgoing light beam having a far field beam cross sectional profile having a spatially flat light distribution; and a light converting member configured to be exposed to the outgoing light beam having the spatially flat light distribution, to convert at least a portion of the light of the first wavelength into light of a second wavelength, and to emit the light of the second wavelength.

The present invention extends the resolution capability for shaping optical pulses on laser systems from the current state of the art resolution of 250 ps to 1 ps by utilizing a hybrid of EOM and spectral shaping technologies. In one embodiment, a short pulse derived from a mode-locked laser oscillator is dispersed using a dispersive stretcher to about 250 ps, providing a linear mapping of spectrum to time. A typical spectral shaper is used to directly write the desired temporal pattern in the spectral domain to produce a crudely patterned waveform that may also suffer from chirp. The chirp is removed by a process known as difference frequency generation by mixing it with a pulse derived from an equally chirped frequency-doubled pump in an optical parametric amplifier. The pattern is then focused in time, which is accomplished in one embodiment by propagating the pattern through a dispersive element.

Recent remarkable progress in wave-front shaping has enabled control of light propagation inside linear media to focus and image through scattering objects. In particular, light propagation in multimode fibers comprises complex intermodal interactions and rich spatiotemporal dynamics. Control of physical phenomena in multimode fibers and its applications is in its infancy, opening opportunities to take advantage of complex mode interactions. Various embodiments of the present technology provide wave-front shaping for controlling nonlinear phenomena in multimode fibers. Using a spatial light modulator at the fiber's input and a genetic algorithm optimization, some embodiments control a highly nonlinear stimulated Raman scattering cascade and its interplay with four wave mixing via a flexible implicit control on the superposition of modes that are coupled into the fiber.

The present application relates to a method and system for characterization and compression of ultrashort pulses. It is described a flexible self-calibrating dispersion-scan technique and respective system to characterize and compress ultrashort laser pulses over a broad range of pulse parameters, where previous knowledge of the amount of dispersion introduced for each position or step of the compressor is not required. The self-calibrating d-scan operation is based on the numerical retrieval of the spectral phase of the pulses using an optimization algorithm, where the spectral phase is treated as a multi-parameter unknown variable, and where the unknown dispersion of the dispersion scanning system is described by a theoretical model of its functional dependence on the compressor position.

Disclosed are ideas to produce an add-on device which turns widely used high repetition rate lasers used for 2-photon microscopy into a light source which can be used for 3-photon microscopy. The add-on encompasses a device to reduce the pulse repetition rate of the high repetition rate (>50 MHz) laser source (laser or OPO) to less than 10 MHz which allows for higher pulse energies while maintaining reasonable average powers. If the high repetition sources operate below 1250 nm the add-on shifts or broadens the seed light to cover 1.3 m to 1.8 m before amplification. If the high repetition rate source operates at or around 1.3 m the add-on only needs to amplify the pulse after downshifting the repetition rate. In another implementation the add-on shifts or broadens the 1.3 m light to cover the spectral range out to 1.8 m before amplification.

A pulse configurable laser unit is an environmentally stable, mechanically robust, and maintenance-free ultrafast laser source for low-energy industrial, medical and analytical applications. The key features of the laser unit are a reliable, self-starting fiber oscillator and an integrated programmable pulse shaper. The combination of these components allows taking full advantage of the laser's broad bandwidth ultrashort pulse duration and arbitrary waveform generation via spectral phase manipulation. The source can routinely deliver near-TL, sub-60 fs pulses with megawatt-level peak power. The output pulse dispersion can be tuned to pre-compensate phase distortions down the line as well as to optimize the pulse profile for a specific application.

An ultrafast electro-optic laser makes a stabilized comb and includes: a comb generator that produces a frequency comb; a dielectric resonant oscillator; a phase modulator in communication with the dielectric resonant oscillator; an intensity modulator in communication with the phase modulator; an optical tailor in communication with the comb generator and that produces tailored light; a filter cavity in communication with the intensity modulator; a pulse shaper in communication with the filter cavity; a highly nonlinear fiber and compressor in communication with the pulse shaper; an interferometer in communication with the optical tailor and that produces a difference frequency from the tailored light; and an electrical stabilizer in communication with the interferometer and the comb generator and that produces the stabilization signal with a stabilized local oscillator cavity that produces a stabilized local oscillator signal that is converted into the stabilization signal and communicated to the dielectric resonant oscillator.

There is described a method of tuning an output optical pulse. The method generally has: generating a seed optical pulse, the seed optical pulse having a tunable parameter; propagating the seed optical pulse into and along one of a plurality of optical fibers each having a hollow core extending along a given length, the optical fibers having a parameter being different from one another; pumping a gas inside the hollow core of the one of the optical fibers, said pumping having a tunable parameter; the propagation of the seed optical pulse into and along the one of the optical fibers modifying the seed optical pulse into the output optical pulse; and tuning the output optical pulse by modifying the tunable parameter of the seed optical pulse, modifying the one of the optical fibers along which the seed optical pulse is propagated and modifying the tunable parameter of said pumping.

A pulse light source device (100) for creating fs output laser pulses (1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3) having CEP stability comprises a pulse source device (10) creating primary ps laser pulses, a first beam splitting device (13) splitting the primary ps laser pulses to first ps laser pulses (2.1) and second ps laser pulses (2.2), a pulse shortening device (20) creating sub-ps laser pulses (3) by shortening and spectrally broadening the first ps laser pulses (2.1), a primary supercontinuum generation device (30) creating primary fs laser pulses (4), a pulse stretcher device (40) creating stretched ps laser pulses (5, 5.1) by stretching the primary fs laser pulses (4), a optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification device (51) creating amplified ps laser pulses (6, 6.1) on the basis of the stretched ps laser pulses (5, 5.1) and the second ps laser pulses (2.2); a phase stabilization device (61) creating CEP stable ps laser pulses (7, 7.1) by difference frequency generation of the amplified ps laser pulses (6, 6.1) and reference laser pulses derived from the primary ps laser pulses (2) or the sub-ps laser pulses (3), a pulse compressor device (71) creating compressed fs laser pulses (8, 8.1) by compressing the CEP stable ps laser pulses (7, 7.1) output by the phase stabilization device (61), and a secondary supercontinuum generation device (81) creating fs output laser pulses as the fs output laser pulses (1, 1.1) to be obtained by spectrally broadening the compressed fs laser pulses (8, 8.1). Furthermore, a method of creating fs output laser pulses is described.

In some implementations, an electrical drive circuit may generate a rectangular optical pulse using cathode pre-charge and cathode-pull compensation. The electrical drive circuit may include an anode and a cathode to connect an optical load, a switch, a first source connected between the anode and a ground, a rectifier connected between the cathode and the switch, a capacitor connected in parallel with the rectifier, a second source connected to the ground, and an inductor connected between the switch and the second source. In some implementations, when the switch is closed and the optical load is connected, a first current is provided to the optical load through the first source, the rectifier, and the switch, and a second current is provided to the optical load through the first source, the capacitor, and the switch, where a rise time of the first current complements a fall time of the second current.